


Oh Dear...

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: The Buzz in Your Hearts [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Almost Kiss, Awkward Flirting, Doctor Who Spoilers, Episode: s03e10 Blink, Episode: s11e06 Demons of the Punjab, Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, F/M, Guess Who's Catching Feelings Again, M/M, Other, POV The Master (Doctor Who), References to Racism and Sexism, Shut Up Kiss, Spoilers, Spoilers for Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: The plan is finally coming together. He just has to stay focused, manipulate the Doctor to where she needs to be, and then he'll have exactly what he wants.Except that, seeing the Doctor in person, he's growing increasingly tempted to just tell the plan to sod off.Oh no.[[The events of "Spyfall" from the Master's POV]]
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: The Buzz in Your Hearts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610287
Comments: 74
Kudos: 553





	1. Part One

_Oh my._

That’s what he thinks, seeing her in person again. Yes, they had met in one of her earlier regenerations and had been texting for ages before this, but those things could never compare to the utter thrill of seeing her new incarnation face-to-face, seeing those bright eyes, that friendly smile, and that aura of sheer magnetism that draws in everything around her like planets orbiting a star. She is always like this: no matter which regeneration, it is impossible to look away from the Doctor.

And here she is, standing in his “front yard,” asking for his help.

For a moment, he wants to confess, to watch her eyes go wide with recognition, but he holds off. He already has the perfect moment planned, when he can reveal himself and explain exactly what he’s doing and watch that brilliant mind go to work on how she could stop him this time.

Because, of course, there _is_ a chance that she’ll stop him eventually. She usually does. He wonders sometimes how much of his schemes are for his own benefit and how much of them are for hers—she loves puzzles and showing off and _winning._ He used to grumble that if he heard even one more self-righteous speech out of that smug mouth he would go mad (well, more mad than he usually is; he no longer sees the point of pretending that he isn’t), but in truth he rather likes it. In those moments, her attention is focused, laser-like, on no one but him.

That was the best part of the texting, he realises: the fact that, with only a few taps on a screen, he could get her attention whenever he wanted it. Not just that: _positive_ attention. She actually wanted to hear from him. They swapped lame jokes and bits of useful information and pictures of things that they knew the other one would like.

It was so much like it used to be, so long ago, before they went their separate ways. He hadn’t realised how desperately he had missed that friendship; enough that, for a moment, he considers abandoning the whole plan and pretending to be human for as long as he can manage, travelling with her across space and time as just another “companion.” She had been affectionate with other humans in the past, so perhaps he could even have a chance at that: growing ever closer to her until she never wanted him to leave, at which point he would hold her so tightly that she could feel the rhythm of both of his hearts and finally realise that they were always meant to be together.

He doesn’t understand enough about present-day Earth culture to entirely parse the language of emojis, but knows enough to guess that all the winky-faces-blowing-kisses mean _something._

And _what_ in the Tombs of Rassilon had she been getting at when she closed the most recent message with _“Kisses!”?_

She has always been a bit of a flirt—some regenerations more than others. Back when he was Missy, it had been fun to turn the tables a bit and have one hell of a snog when they first saw each other. For a moment, he considers doing that again, but discards the notion immediately: he isn’t Missy anymore and knows that it wouldn’t be received at all well this time. Mister Grumpy Eyebrows was startled (and possibly a bit flattered), but this new regeneration of the Doctor would most likely just be upset.

Over text, she had complained a little bit about how differently she was treated by humans now that she was female: her ideas being taken less seriously, the little whispered comments and leers, and that unpleasant time on the tube when someone grabbed her without her permission. She was used to her body being wholly her own, and the discovery that some people now felt entitled to it left her a little shaken.

He can sympathise a bit; not from the time when he was Missy—being the ruler of one’s own personal dimension of the dead shifted the balance of power in a very favourable way—but from his current circumstances. Impersonating a brown-skinned man in Britain, even in the early 21st century, brought challenges that he had not anticipated: the hissed slurs, the suspicious looks, even getting roughed up a few times while walking home at night. If they only knew how dangerous he really was, he thought to himself afterwards, and started carrying his tissue compression eliminator with him at all times despite the risks if he were caught with it by someone who could recognize it as extraterrestrial technology.

There was at least one benefit to moving out to the Australian Outback: he didn’t have to deal with _that._ Here, all he had to do was work on the plan and gain her trust so that, when things started going to pieces at MI6, she would turn to him for help.

She shows up with one of her pets, which is irritating but inevitable. She has always been what the humans would call a “crazy cat lady.” She could be off spending her time with people who were actually on her level (people like _him),_ but instead she hangs around this tiresome planet with over seven billion strays for her to adopt and drag all over time and space, before getting them killed or misplaced or otherwise damaged. He would rather leave the third one trapped in the Kasaavin’s dimension, but transports it to his TARDIS instead because the alternative is the Doctor leaving to go on a pet-rescuing mission. It’s not like it matters: he plans to kill them soon anyway.

If only she would realise how _small_ this sentimentality makes her and how much happier she would be if she could let go of this place. If she truly cared about protecting them, she would teach the humans how to properly defend themselves, but instead she focuses on the weakest ones and fools them into thinking that they’re capable—it’s like making corgis into guard dogs. And then, of course, everything on Earth eventually goes to hell yet again, and she charges in and saves the day _yet again,_ and no lesson is learned. 

She wants to be needed so badly and thinks that this is the best way to do it, and he is running out of ways to tell her that it’s never going to be enough. Maybe if he could convince her that _he_ needs her, it would solve things, but that will never happen unless there isn’t an Earth to save anymore. She will always choose humans over everyone else.

He had gotten so close with the 3W/Cyberman scheme: for a moment, he really thought that the Doctor would take that power and use it, but the only consolation he (well, _she,_ being Missy at the time) could get from it in the end was a gentle kiss and some sympathy.

So he has to try again. Perhaps something will change. He has to hold on to that irritating thing that she’s always going on about in her most self-righteous speeches: _hope._

The moment that she steps inside his TARDIS, he is tempted to slam the door on her pets and take her somewhere else, where he could finally explain what’s really going on. But then he remembers the importance of the plan and gets back to work.

He catches her staring at him a few times and he wonders if she’s figuring it out, if she can tell that she’s in a TARDIS, if she can tell that something is off about the whole scenario. But instead, all she does is give him a slightly-hesitant smile and looks away with a faint hint of pink on her cheeks.

He wishes that he knew how fast her hearts are beating right now. He wonders if it’s as rapidly as his own.

* * *

_Oh fun._

That’s what he thinks when she comes up with a plan to infiltrate Daniel Barton’s party. The thought is only a little sarcastic; he loves disguises and sneaking around and the absolute thrill of shamelessly lying his head off. He also loves watching the Doctor’s utter ineptitude at it. That’s where her inherent charisma is more liability than asset: she can’t _not_ be noticed.

When he enters her TARDIS, he worries that it is going to know who he is, since their history together has been more than a little complicated over the years, what with all the stealing and vandalising and jury-rigging paradoxes he had done to it. He hisses “shut up” as he takes the first step; either it was effective or her TARDIS didn’t recognize him. It doesn’t even seem to know that it’s inside his own TARDIS.

The interior is different, but the interior is always different; the ship seems to regenerate as often as the Doctor does, and with just as jumbled results. At least it’s not the round things; he always hated the round things.

The costume for their infiltration is suits. He loves a good suit, almost as much as he loves a good cape.

Watching her desperate attempt at making the pieces of her outfit actually match is amusing, though he finally steps in before she decides to dress as a Roman centurion instead (“I’m sure I can figure out a good excuse,” she claims). 

He reaches past her into the closet and tries not to obviously inhale, but it’s hard to resist the urge: no matter the regeneration, she always smells the same familiar way. For a moment, he is tempted to steal something so that he can remember her in case the plan goes completely sideways, but he reminds himself that it’s not necessary since he’s already going to be borrowing a suit from her. Besides, he has to believe that the plan will work, or else what’s the point?

The humans have already grabbed their attire and gone off to change in privacy, but he doesn’t bother to leave. He knows that she doesn’t care.

So he takes his time getting dressed.

He sneaks a peek at her and is surprised to find her looking back at him. He’s not the only one being a bit slow about putting their clothes back on.

He feels the heat rushing to his cheeks as an identical blush appears on hers.

_Oh no._

Missy once sneered at one of the Doctor’s former pets for being blinded by the “reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain.” He hasn’t exactly _retracted_ the statement since then, but he has to admit that the whole snogging thing is enjoyable even if it pales in comparison to the rest of the destructive chaos that forms the basis of their millennia-long relationship.

Before he realises what he’s doing, he’s almost fully dressed. She, meanwhile, has gotten as far as putting on her shirt but hasn’t made it to the trousers yet. This is as good of a time as any, he supposes.

“I need some help with the tie,” he says. “I’ve never been good with bowties.”

“Lucky for you, then,” she says, taking it from him and putting it around his neck. “I’m brilliant at bowties.”

“I think you’re rather brilliant about everything.” He does his best to make it sound like a confession—which it is, in a way, since he’d never admit that to her out loud otherwise.

“Not everything,” she protests. “Still haven’t gotten the hang of harmonicas, no matter how much I practise. Even got Larry Adler to give me a few lessons—he was at a bit of a low point at the time because of the McCarthy hearings so I thought it might cheer him up—”

He can’t help laughing. She never seems to turn down an opportunity to namedrop, even if her audience has no clue who she’s talking about.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, no longer paying attention to the tie.

“You,” is really all he can say. “Say, er, when we’re done saving the world, would you maybe want to, er—” He’s really no longer sure how much of this nervousness is an act, not with her standing so close.

“To… spend some time together?” she finishes, just as nervous, which in itself is kind of a relief.

“Tea or something? Chips? I’ve been stuck in Australia so long that I’ve forgotten all of the stuff I used to eat back in London.” Of course, the truth is more that he can barely recall his own shoe size at the moment, let alone any examples of what could only very generously be termed “British cuisine.”

But it was apparently effective: she grins. “Chips sound fantastic. I know just the place.” She goes back to securing the bowtie around his neck.

Just as she finishes, he takes one of her hands in his. He had forgotten what it was like, being around another Time Lord like this. There was this strange effect, one that he felt so many times over the years, where he could _sense_ that she was nearby, an echo of home and familiarity and being _recognized._

He stares into her eyes, looking for that spark of recognition. This isn’t part of the plan but right now the plan can sod off for all he cares.

At this point, it’s verging on frustrating: how in Rassilon’s interminable lives has she not figured it out yet?

That’s when it clicks: she’s distracted by _him,_ by who he appears to be rather than who he actually is. She looks at him like she’s never seen anyone like him before. She’s fascinated, which is a very new experience for him because she’s _never_ fascinated with him. This might be the best lie he’s ever told in his life.

Of course, the fact remains that it’s a _lie,_ but he tells himself to just enjoy it. She’ll be mad at him later, but that was going to happen anyway.

He leans in, lips parting—

And then one of her stupid pets comes to check on them.

For a brief moment, he almost takes out the tissue compression eliminator to shoot the old man, but reins in the impulse just in time. The three humans will die soon enough. Besides, his own recklessness very nearly ruined the entire plan, because the Doctor needs to act how she would normally act in order for it to work, and he’s fairly certain that making out with a human in her wardrobe isn’t exactly normal even for her.

But, oh, it would have been nice.

She jumps backwards, obviously flustered, and he realises that he’s backing away too, feeling oddly guilty.

He _never_ feels guilty.

_Oh dear._

She quickly pulls on her trousers, followed by her coat. “Ready to go?” she asks brightly, not really directing the question to anyone in particular as she puts on her boots.

“Bowtie,” he says. “Mustn’t forget the bowtie.”

“Right!” She grabs her own tie and practically runs out of the room.

The old man looks at him with an expression that he does not like at all. “Did I interrupt something?”

“No,” he says, trying to keep a smile on his face. “We’d better hurry or we’ll be left behind.”

* * *

_Oh, for the love of—_

That’s what he thinks as he looks across the room and hears her yell “Snap!” at the blackjack table. The only reason why this sort of cluelessness doesn’t spell utter disaster for her every single time is because most people just assume that she’s daft and proceed to underestimate her. Playing the fool has its advantages, he supposes.

Even though sometimes he wants to sit her down and teach her how to _actually_ blend in so that she doesn’t have to run away from angry people with weapons so often, but he suspects that it won’t have much of an effect. Besides, if she _did_ internalise the lesson it would only make her more dangerous. He’s not sure if he could handle her being even _more_ dangerous than she already is.

She turns and grins victoriously at the rest of the room. For a moment, their eyes lock, before they both quickly look away. 

For the rest of their time at the party, he sticks close to the girl, Yaz. She was obviously shaken by her rather… _unique_ trip from California to Australia, and he knows that if she doesn’t feel at least a little more secure then it will start distracting the Doctor, and he _needs_ the Doctor to not be distracted right now.

“You know what they say,” he tells Yaz after she loses yet again at the craps table, “lucky at dice, unlucky in love.”

“Do they really say that?” She’s more relaxed, even a little charmed by his flirting.

He looks back at the Doctor again. He can’t tell if she’s the luckiest person or the unluckiest person in the universe, in dice _or_ in love.

“No,” he says with a laugh. 

* * *

_Oh fantastic._

That’s what he thinks as he watches her run after the plane. At last, the plan is coming together. She is doing exactly what he expected her to do: following Barton no matter what and dragging her pets along with her into a very convenient high-altitude trap.

They are all, however, much better at running than he is. It wasn’t as though he was spending all his time in the Outback doing calisthenics—even the old man is faster than he is, which is really just _unfair._

She is on the ramp, holding out a hand for him to grab, and he puts the rest of his strength into his legs and jumps. She pulls him onto the plane and for a moment they just look at one another, hands still together.

_We did this back then, too: back when we were kids running around in a field, when I grabbed your hand and you pulled me after you, and then we kissed and I thought that it would go on and on forever…_

_But nothing lasts forever. Not even for Time Lords._

_Oh well._

He stands up and follows her into the main cabin. “Sorry. I've never been good at sprinting.”

“Never been good at sprinting?” she repeats, confused.

Still breathing hard, he smiles sheepishly. “I was the last one in every race at school.”

She pauses, and he sees the first hints of suspicion on her face. “No, no, no,” she says, “I read your file: you were a champion sprinter.”

She figured it out… well, she had figured out that he wasn’t who he said he was, enough to trap him in a lie. Now the rest would come out in short order; he had already summoned his TARDIS to fly alongside the plane.

_Oh good._

“Got me,” he says with a grin. “Well done.”


	2. Part Two

_Oh damn it!_

That’s what he thinks, realising that not only have her stupid trio of pets managed to cheat their way out of his trap, but she’s gotten loose _again._ And meanwhile, Barton won’t stop complaining and the only consolation left is that in a few hours none of it will matter anymore, because the humans will be gone. And that will include Barton himself: humans are always dumb enough to think that they will be the exception, but 93% human is still human.

And, while Barton and the Kasaavin tear each other to pieces, he’ll retrieve the Doctor from the dimension they had stashed her in, and then he would explain everything.

That was the _plan,_ except that she, _as usual,_ escaped—and he can’t figure out _how._

But that’s just a minor inconvenience. On the bright side, she isn’t in the 21st century: she’s in the early 19th. No TARDIS and very little technology at her disposal.

So perhaps he had better _bring_ her some, shouldn’t he?

He drops Barton off and then heads to 1834.

Some part of him wants to keep wearing the tuxedo, to have a last lingering reminder of those precious few hours when she trusted him, but he reluctantly decides against it. If he’s going to get close enough to the Doctor to catch her, then he’s going to have to blend in.

Of course, once he _does_ catch her, he won’t have to worry about blending in anymore, and he’ll finally get a chance to take the old tissue compression eliminator out for a spin.

It’s been far too long since he’s gone on a decent rampage.

* * *

_Oh, I’ve missed this._

That’s what he thinks, firing the TCE into the crowd at the Adelaide Gallery. The screaming is fantastic, music to his ears… he should have hired a band to accompany it.

_Maximum carnage._

The last time he went on a killing spree, of course, he had been far too angry to really enjoy it. This time is both sheer indulgence _and_ showing off for the only other person in the room who really matters.

He even bothered to dress up for the occasion.

She’s too busy at first trying to hide the latest human stray to have caught her fancy, but it’s only a matter of time before she’ll feel compelled to act heroic.

At last: she strides to the center of the room. “Let them go,” she proclaims, “and you can have me.”

 _You utter flirt._ “I’ve got you anyway,” he points out. 

Her expression still contains a bit of a dare in it, which means that he’s going to have to have a little more fun before they can get down to business.

After he zaps a few more squealing humans, she just seems irritated. “What do you want?” she demands.

As if she doesn’t already know the answer. He almost says it anyway: _you._

_It’s always you._

But this isn’t the time: _now_ is the time for a performance. He indicates the TCE in his hand and the crowd around them. “Kneel. Kneel or they will die.”

It’s a cheap shot, threatening the humans again, but it always works: she slowly drops to her knees and looks annoyed.

He hopes that she can see the fun in it. He’s trying his best to see the fun in it himself, but he can’t quite shake the discomfort when he remembers her texts about the things she’s heard and seen from men in this regeneration. What he’s ordering her to do… well, it’s technically harmless but he still feels an odd twinge about it.

Not that it stops him from enjoying the sight of her defeated, nor does it stop him from ordering her to say his name.

“Master.”

He loves it when she says his name.

He tells her to say it again.

“Master.”

One more time: “Master.”

He never loves his name more than he does when the Doctor says it.

She’s tiring of the game and, to be honest, so is he. He kneels and joins her on the floor. 

He indulges in a little more taunting, a little more back and forth, a little more of their old push and pull, but when she asks him about the Kasaavin it’s a question that he doesn’t expect: “Do you trust them?” 

He doesn’t know why that question is so painful. “Not completely,” he admits quietly.

He can’t remember the last time he trusted anyone. He doesn’t even trust himself.

He’s not sure what he wants right now: he has her right here, there’s nowhere for her to go, and he’s holding a room full of humans hostage. There’s the plan to worry about, but right now they’re in the past and he has a ship that can travel through time. If they wanted to, they could sit in this exact spot for the next 186 years and he’d still have enough time remaining to destroy the Earth. 

He wants to kiss her and he also wants to kill her, and if that doesn’t sum up the entirety of their relationship then words are completely useless.

His previous regeneration’s attempt at repairing their broken bond was cut short by a rather literal act of self-sabotage, and then the things he learned in the aftermath—about Gallifrey, about the lies, about everything—set him on another path. Missy had tried joining the Doctor’s side, she tried to let the Doctor pull her across the chasm between them… but it was impossible now. The only way for them to be on the same side once more is for the Doctor to join him on his.

Telling her is a risk, but when has that ever stopped him before? Besides, this revelation might be the thing that finally does it: the thing that _finally_ gives him enough of an upper hand that when he offers it to her she’ll take it.

_Hand in hand, just like we used to be._

So, he might as well get started with the news from home—

That’s when the girl, the one his TCE had passed over when a sliver of his mind pinged her as somehow important to the timestream, fires a rudimentary automatic weapon in his direction.

Even with all of the carnage he’s caused here, the Doctor still steps into the line of fire to keep him safe. She probably doesn’t even realise that she’s doing it, he thinks. It’s instinctive: neither of them can fully commit to killing the other. They will always hold back just a little, for better or for worse.

She runs away, but he knows it’s only temporary. She won’t get far without a TARDIS.

It was ironic that this latest meeting occurred at a technical exhibition. Of the two of them, he’s probably more supportive of these things, because the Doctor, whether she realises it or not, hates it when her pets get new-fangled notions.

She can only allow humanity to progress so far. Once they stop being cheerful monkeys that are delighted with her little tricks, and start being something _more,_ they won’t need her anymore.

And she wouldn’t accept that. 

Even without the Kasaavin, Daniel Barton would have remade humanity into something glorious. His technological advances would have taken them to the stars and beyond the reaches of their galaxy. The diseases of Earth would no longer be threats, terrestrial wars would be pointless, and their repulsive biology would be augmented with all the synthetic materials their little minds could devise.

And the Doctor would have _hated it._

He’s not even sure she really understands what her interference has done to her favorite species. Every bit of technology she sabotages for being “too dangerous,” every new paradigm she halts for being “too inhumane,” every moment of alien contact she intercepts for being “too soon”—at this point, she has set humanity’s progress back by centuries.

This world needs chaos. It needs carnage. And those are two things that he is _very_ good at delivering.

Whether they like it or not.

* * *

 _Oh,_ _come on_ _!_

His TARDIS’s chameleon circuit breaks on his way to the 1830s, meaning that when he arrives in the 1940s he has to find a way to park an entire cabin in an alley in wartime Paris. 

If she ever finds out about it, she’s going to think the irony is hilarious… and will probably tease him about it for at least another two or three regenerations.

At least, he hopes so. That’s the plan.

The door-to-door search is useless. There is one flat where he catches a hint of… something, but at that point he is already so exhausted that he orders his jackbooted drudges to fire several rounds into the floorboards and then moves on.

It isn’t as though the Doctor is any good at blending in, after all. She’ll turn up eventually; he just has to wait.

Of course, sitting in a bunker with a squad of idiots isn’t his preferred way to pass the time. He wonders if it would draw too much attention if he started firing the TCE for fun.

And then he hears it: four beats. Slightly syncopated, again and again.

For one terrifying minute, he thinks it’s the drums again, that he’s falling back into the horrible nightmare where he’s nothing but an instrument—a literal instrument—for the Time Lords to use, that they’re somehow _back,_ that everything he did hadn’t made a damn bit of difference, that—

But no: it’s the telegraph machine in the other room. He breathes a sigh of relief.

The taps continue, and that’s when he realises that the message is for him: over and over, the rhythm of two hearts beating.

 _Her_ hearts. He can sense her: she’s close and, even better, she’s seeking him out.

He rests his fingers on the switch. She sent him her hearts—now he sends her his.

Four taps, back and forth, push and pull, until finally there is no reply. 

Well, not through the telegraph, at least.

_“Contact.”_

And there she is, inside his mind, all the brilliant constellations of her thoughts hitting him with such force that he almost forgets how to breathe. 

For the smallest increment of a moment, he is convinced that he’s dying. He’s died before, so he knows what it feels like, and this is a very similar sensation. His hearts are going to pound their way right out of his chest.

He knows that if he doesn’t say something, she’ll start in with a lecture, but all he really wants to do is sit there in silence, bathing in the glow of that presence, and let out all of the longing that has been building up inside of him since the moment in the Outback when he saw her again.

He wonders how she would react if he did that. 

_“Old-school,”_ he manages to say.

 _“You’re not the only one who can do classic,”_ she replies, sounding so cocky that he can’t help taunting her: 

_“So, how are you holding up? Without a TARDIS, or your friends, or a hope… a fugitive in time?”_

It’s dangerous, communicating this way—minds are easy things to get lost in—but neither of them ever let something as trivial as danger stop them. Back when they were young—back when they were _friends_ —they did this all the time: drifting in and out of one another’s thoughts, both from a distance and face to face, until the push and pull between them resolved into _just_ _us._

The sheer _intimacy_ of it borders on the obscene.

 _“All right,”_ she says, and it feels like she’s whispering the words directly into his skin. _“You’ve come all this way. You’ve got me cornered.”_

He hasn’t, he really hasn’t, he forgot that there were other ways to get closer, other ways to corner someone, because that’s how he feels right now: cornered in his own mind, surrounded by the thunder of four hearts beating as two.

She continues: _“I’ll meet you.”_ He knows that it’s a trap, he knows that she probably has a plan to escape and that this is just a distraction, but after the day he’s had he could really use a distraction, and there is nothing in this entire universe more distracting than her.

 _“No troops,”_ she says. _“No soldiers. Just us.”_

 _Just us._ Had she overheard what he was thinking, his memory of how they had once been, or did she have a reminiscence of her own?

 _“Where?”_ he asks.

Her amusement is almost tangible. _“Where do you think?”_

Perfect. So utterly perfect, that he actually laughs in relief.

He can feel her start to pull away, so before she can close the connection he asks: _“Before you knew he was me… did you want him?”_

She lingers in his mind a few moments longer. It’s as though she’s trying to figure out what to say. He can feel their heartbeats speeding up and a shiver runs down his spine.

He gets as close to her thoughts as he can and pictures himself murmuring into her ear: _“You did, didn’t you?”_

She vanishes, leaving an absence in her wake, and he feels like he’s dying all over again.

* * *

_Oh, what a view._

Really, he could be referring to the Doctor _or_ the city right now. Even from the top of the Eiffel Tower, there’s no way to hide the awful state that Paris is in, but the Doctor is an even more complicated wasteland to behold.

“It’s cold up here!” she shouts as she arrives. “It’s worse than the Jodrell Bank!”

“Did I ever apologise for that?” he wonders out loud.

“No.”

“Good.” Even when Missy apologised, she never apologised for anything she did to the Doctor. That’s a line he refuses to cross.

“How’s the shoulder?” she asks.

He can’t help grimacing. “Painful.”

She then goes straight to the really uncomfortable part: “I don’t like what you’re wearing. Or the company you keep.”

He wants to retort that she _never_ likes what he wears or the company he keeps, but she does have a point that it’s a bit awkward. Still, it was the easiest way to get control of a few obedient dullards wielding guns. It’s not like he was going to stomp around occupied Paris without _minions._

Besides, it doesn’t really matter; neither of them will be here for long.

But he can at least use this opportunity to finally, _finally,_ tell her how brilliant his plan is. She can’t leave here without him and his TARDIS, so he indulges in some long-overdue gloating.

He expected a self-righteous objection, but he’s still surprised by her response: “When does all this stop for you?” she demands. “The games? The betrayals? The killing?”

As if she doesn’t already know the answer: “How else would I get your attention?”

It’s not her fault that she can’t resist the chance to save the day, any more than it’s his fault that he can’t resist the urge to take pretty things and burn them. They can have this same argument for centuries—and, in a way, they have.

But there’s more that he has to say. “When did you last go home?” 

The look on her face is answer enough. She hasn’t gone, not since the time the Doctor forced his way into their pocket dimension through what was apparently sheer stubbornness and almost started a planetary uprising on _accident._ She did what she usually does: takes what she needs and then runs away again without a second glance.

So he tells her: Gallifrey was razed to the ground, everything burned, and everyone was killed.

He stops there and watches her absorb this new information.

It’s not quite wistful, his reflection on those years when they believed they were the only two survivors of Gallifrey, but he still can’t get that memory out of his head: the Doctor sobbing on the _Valiant_ while pleading with him to regenerate because they were the only ones left, that it couldn’t end like this… 

But here they both are, an endangered species yet again. Not that that was the original plan, but it’s not exactly an outcome that he’s complaining about. They were the only two important ones anyway.

_All we have left is each other._

“You’re lying.”

Of _course_ she’s skeptical. Of _course_ she doesn’t believe him. Why should she? But he expected that. Believing him wasn’t the goal anyway: the goal was to get her to go and see it for herself. Except, now that he’s won, she won’t be able to go there at all except with him… and not unless she asks him very _nicely._

But before he can do anything else, Nazi soldiers storm the Tower and all hell breaks loose.

* * *

 _Oh_ _shit_ _._

That’s what he thinks, now that he’s finally escaped from what was likely to be a very painful, very prolonged death. Now that he’s free again, he can find his way out of this wretched country, this wretched war, and this wretched century.

But no luck on the time period part of the problem: she swiped his TARDIS, leaving him stranded in the 1940s.

He’s frustrated, but mostly he’s _hurt._ She didn’t _have_ to rip off the perception filter that kept these fascist idiots convinced that he was a blonde blue-eyed Aryan poster boy, especially since she’d already framed him as a spy for the British, but she did it anyway—even after all of the texts they exchanged where he talked about how he was treated because of his skin color. Perhaps she thought he was lying to her to gain her sympathy. Perhaps she thought it was what he deserved for using the Nazis as a tool to get what he wanted.

Still, this was cruel, even for her.

He’s stuck having to take the slow path back to the 21st century. It’s a good thing he knows how to hold a grudge.

The main problem with this particular century is that the Doctor and her previous regenerations are practically _everywhere._ So are his own, and the last time he tried teaming up with a past self, it ended with being shot and/or stabbed in the back.

Britain, especially London, is entirely out of the question. He’ll have to find another route.

So instead, he goes where the Doctor never goes: back. He shows up places soon after she departs, while everyone is still picking up the pieces of the lives she helped shatter and save, and he asks questions.

When he arrives in the Punjabi countryside, where the locals are still cleaning up after a wedding and a violent aftermath, he asks about the strange blonde woman in the big coat. Apparently the people who had interacted with the Doctor the most during her stay were either dead or had moved to Lahore.

“Who’s she to you?” asks one of the old women at a neighboring farm.

He’s still angry but can’t help grinning at that question. “Would you believe me if I said she was an old girlfriend?”

The woman responds with a brief laugh. “Boy, with a smile like yours I’d believe anything you tell me.”

 _Try this, then:_ “I’m an alien from another planet who recently discovered that everything I thought I knew was a lie, so I burned that world to the ground.”

She shrugs. “All right, _almost_ anything, I suppose.”

* * *

_Oh, this is going to be awkward._

He can’t help going back to London, at least occasionally, especially in the early years. It’s a risk, but when has that ever stopped him before?

He almost ruins the whole thing in 1969: he turns the wrong corner and nearly runs headlong into the Doctor.

Of all the Doctor’s recent regenerations, this one was one of the most captivating: lanky, spiky hair, pinstripe suits, specs and trainers… and oh, how this version of him _burned._ He wonders, if he told _this_ Doctor about all the lies that led them here, what his reaction would be. Would he have followed him to Gallifrey and helped inflict the revenge that their people so richly deserved? This incarnation was full of so much rage and pain that it might have been easy.

Perhaps not, though: this one also believed that he was the only one left, that he was the one who had destroyed Gallifrey to stop the war. He hasn’t yet met the man disguised as Professor Yana or the one disguised as Harold Saxon. He would have been too relieved that he wasn’t responsible for using the Moment. He wouldn’t have understood the big picture.

But he still imagines what the two of them could get up to if they were on the same side. The rest of the universe wouldn’t stand a chance.

_Oh well._

“Sorry about that,” he says, adopting a sheepish expression. “Guess I got lost in my own head.” He puts a hand on the Doctor’s arm as if to steady himself, but he really just wants an excuse to touch him. It’s going to be another fifty years before he gets the chance again.

“That’s all right,” the Doctor says, sounding a little startled. “You’re not the only one lost.” He squints at him. “Have we met?”

He smiles. “Not yet.” He offers his hand, the one not still lingering on the arm of that lovely jacket. “Harry.”

Their fingers meet. “The Doctor.”

“Ooo, posh.”

The Doctor still looks suspicious. “Are you sure we haven’t met? You look familiar.”

He laughs. “Just one of those faces, I guess. What were you saying before about being lost?”

He didn’t think it was possible for the man’s hair to get even _spikier,_ but it does as the Doctor scratches the back of his head—a nervous tic, he supposes. “Trying to get to Tooting Bec,” he says, snapping the consonants as though his life depended on it, “but the Tube’s gone a bit strange.” He frowns. “I think. I might just have forgotten where it is.”

“Well, you’re in Whitechapel now,” he tells the Doctor, “and there’s a Tube station over there.” He should leave. He should really leave—any minute now, he would say something that would give away the fact that he isn’t from this time period or that he does in fact know who the Doctor is.

But he can’t bring himself to go. “Want company?” he offers. “I’ve got time to kill.”

Better to kill time than people, which has been the closest thing to a mantra he’s had these last few decades. Not that it’s completely stopped him, of course, but it’s kept the body count lower than it otherwise would have been. Besides, he limited it to people who were unimportant; nothing that would impact the timeline in any significant way.

“Lead the way,” the Doctor says, smiling cheekily. “Allons-y!”

He has no idea how that wasn’t translated from the French; it’s possible that the pronunciation was mangled beyond the ability of even a TARDIS’s translation circuit to comprehend.

He lets the Doctor prattle on as they walk, letting his annoying chatter wash over him like a wave. He’s still angry about what happened, but oh, he has missed this. Even riding the train, something so mundane and primitive, is oddly pleasant. 

The longing inside of him starts building and building again.

When they get to Tooting, he notices that a lot of the humans in this particular area of London look like his current regeneration, and there’s a strange comfort in that as well.

He keeps waiting for one of the Doctor’s pets to show up—he’s heard the name Martha Jones come up so often already that it’s all he can do not to scream—but the hours pass and it’s still just the two of them, wandering aimlessly as the sun starts to set, before settling onto a bench and splitting an order of chips.

It’s so stupidly horribly comfortable, enough that he almost wants to wrap his hands around the Doctor’s throat and strangle him so that they could go back to their usual dynamic.

“Want to know a secret?” the Doctor says abruptly.

“What?”

“I’m not from around here.”

“Well, you sure sound like a local,” he points out, realising the direction that this conversation is heading.

The Doctor’s expression lights up. “I’m a time traveller.”

It takes almost everything he has to not roll his eyes at how utterly _terrible_ this man is at blending in, or to lecture him about not inflicting his entire life story on every adorable human he crosses paths with, but instead he lets his jaw drop and a look of wonder appears on his face. “Really?”

The Doctor nods, still beaming.

“Like, you’ve got some kind of time machine?” 

“It travels through time _and_ space,” he says, smirking like he built the damn thing from scratch instead of just swiping one and piloting it like a drunken teenager.

“Are you heading to the future?” he asks eagerly— _that_ reaction, at least, is not a lie: it would save him a lot of trouble if he could skip even a couple of decades.

“Eventually.”

He does his best impression of a heart-eyed emoji: “I don’t suppose I could get a lift, could I? The future sounds brilliant.”

The confidence in the Doctor’s expression falters a little. “It’s… it’s gone missing,” he admits quietly. “I’m stuck here until I can find a way to get it back.” He emits a tiny snort of laughter. “Sounds like a convenient excuse to not show you, I know.”

He tears through his memory: when did the Doctor lose his TARDIS? There was the period when the Time Lords exiled him to Earth, but _that_ was the foppish sandwich-stealing deranged motorist, and it wouldn’t happen for another year at least.

It must be temporary, then. Well, he’s already wormed his way into _one_ Doctor’s confidence, he could probably do it again… though he isn’t sure how he could manage it without risking recognition when he joins MI6, or how long he could keep himself from killing that Martha Jones out of sheer instinct, paradoxes be damned.

But right now, it’s just the two of them, as it should be. He looks at the Doctor fondly, eyes filling with sympathy. “Then you’re just like the rest of us: we’re all stuck on the slow path, when you think about it.” He takes the Doctor's hand in his. “It’s not so bad once you get used to it.”

They both stare down at their interlaced fingers.

_We used to do this, back then, back when it was just us._

The Doctor leans in, as though trying to get a better look. “Are you sure we haven’t met—”

Realising how close he is to being discovered, he panics and kisses him.

The Doctor always smells the same, no matter the regeneration, but he never tastes the same. This one is nice: strangely smoky, like there’s a literal fire inside instead of just a figurative one.

He wants to keep going, wants to get him out of those pinstripes, but manages to wrench his thoughts back to something resembling coherence. It’s 1969, they’re in public and both look like men and, most importantly, if he gets as close as he wants to get then the Doctor will hear his hearts and the timeline will fracture in a thousand different ways.

So he draws back, leaving the Doctor’s glasses hanging a bit askew over his stunned expression.

“I hope you find your way back,” he tells the Doctor softly, and then leaves as quickly as he can without actually running.

In only a short time, the Doctor will travel to the so-called Utopia, where he will meet Professor Yana, and then endure months of torture at the hands of Harold Saxon. Compared to all that, a kiss from a stranger is nothing.

Perhaps the Doctor will remember this encounter fondly… though hopefully not in much detail.

* * *

 _Oh,_ _this_ _again._

He spends the entire Saxon “era” in the Outback. He loved being that man, loved the way he burned with anger and madness, but he really can’t deal with the Toclafane or the duplicates again, especially now that he’s stuck on the side of the potential victims. 

It’s infuriating to have to watch everything, knowing that he can’t interfere or else the plan won’t happen, let alone succeed. 

However, an interesting side effect of this ordeal is that, at this point, he’s probably spent longer living among humans than the Doctor has. Oh, sure, the Doctor _spends time_ with them, but she doesn’t ever _live_ with them. Only a few more years to go and then he can rub that observation in her smug pet-hoarding face.

He also has to avoid Missy’s activities as well, although that doesn’t stop him from planting a camera in the graveyard where she offered the Doctor an army of Cybermen with which to conquer the galaxy. It was nice to see that again.

But now that he’s made it to the 21st century, he gets more and more furious with each passing day. All this time, all this waiting and hiding and escaping, and it _all_ could have been avoided if she had just let him capture her and take her to see the remains of Gallifrey while the Earth crumbles to dust behind them.

As usual, he’s not sure which one he wants more: to kiss her or kill her.

* * *

_Oh, well played._

He supposes he should have seen this coming: every time he tries to ally with _anyone_ it goes wrong. The Kasaavin are no exception, and he really has no one to blame but himself.

And the Doctor, of course.

So here he is: trapped in the Kasaavin’s dimension and left for dead.

In a way, he isn’t even that bothered about it. He’s died before, after all. This isn’t so bad. 

Incredibly _frustrating,_ of course, but that’s all right. He just has to wait, and then she’ll be back for him.

Very soon, she’ll get curious over whether or not he was telling the truth about Gallifrey. She’ll travel there, alone, with no pets around to ask questions. She’ll see what happened.

She’ll see what he did.

And that’s when his message will play: telling her about the lies, about that sweet revenge, about everything… almost.

He won’t tell her what the lie _is._ She needs to find that out for herself.

She’ll think that he refused to tell her just to be cruel or to force her to rescue him in order to get answers, but that’s not the real reason.

The real reason is this: if he told her, she wouldn’t believe him. Not only that, she would refuse to find out for sure. Her mind would reject the whole idea and she would drown her curiosity to keep from considering the possibility, even though she knows as well as he does that the Time Lords are capable of _anything._

But if she discovers the truth for herself, then she’ll understand why he did what he did. She’ll agree that he did the right thing.

She’ll even wish that she could have helped him do it.

He imagines kissing her as they stand together in the ruins of Gallifrey.

_Oh, if only…_

For now, he just has to wait. The Doctor will come for him eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter contains an alternate ending.


	3. Alternate Ending

_Oh, well played._

He supposes he should have seen this coming: every time he tries to ally with _anyone_ it goes wrong. The Kasaavin are no exception, and he really has no one to blame but himself.

And the Doctor, of course.

So here he is: trapped in the Kasaavin’s dimension and left for dead.

In a way, he isn’t even that bothered about it. He’s died before, after all. This isn’t so bad. 

Incredibly _frustrating,_ of course, but that’s all right. He just has to wait, and then she’ll be back for him.

Very soon, she’ll get curious over whether or not he was telling the truth about Gallifrey. She’ll travel there, alone, with no pets around to ask questions. She’ll see what happened.

She’ll see what he did.

And that’s when his message will play: telling her about the lies, about that sweet revenge, about everything… almost.

He won’t tell her what the lie _is._ She needs to find that out for herself.

She’ll think that he refused to tell her just to be cruel or to force her to rescue him in order to get answers, but that’s not the real reason.

The real reason is this: if he told her, she wouldn’t believe him. Not only that, she would refuse to find out for sure. Her mind would reject the whole idea and she would drown her curiosity to keep from considering the possibility, even though she knows as well as he does that the Time Lords are capable of _anything._

Especially the two of them.

Something flickers in his memory: a neural block dissolving that he didn’t realise was there. Whatever it is, it is tethered to specific dimensions, meaning that when he arrives in this new one… he remembers.

_Gallifrey burned around him, the screams fading into silence like the end of a beautiful symphony. His revenge, his glorious revenge for the lies and betrayal, for that horrible feeling of shattering as everything he had ever believed about himself crumbled—it felt both impossible and inevitable._

In his original recollection of this moment, he was alone. Without the neural block, however, he discovers that he wasn’t.

_She picked her way through the rubble, heading towards him with an expression of satisfaction on her face, as though admiring her handiwork._

_Because some of it_ _was_ _her handiwork. They had discovered the awful truth and then found each other, knowing with a dreadful certainty what had to happen next: the impossible and the inevitable._

_But they didn’t speak much before or during the process. They had been a bit busy, after all._

_“You were…” But he had run out of words. ‘Beautiful’ wasn’t sufficient. ‘Terrible,’ perhaps, in the more cosmic sense of the term: an avenging god, an oncoming storm, something that had transcended the boundaries of what was possible._

_He sank to his knees before he realised what he was doing._

_She gazed down at him, fascinated. “Call me by my name,” she said softly._

_He was confused but complied: “Doctor.”_

_“Try again.”_

_He frowned. “Doctor.”_

_“No. Not the Doctor,” she corrected him. “One more try.”_

_Her eyes held a gleam of something teasing… and something more._

_It clicked. “Valeyard.”_

_“Got me,” she said with a slight smile. “Well done.” She held out a hand and helped him up._

_It happened. It finally happened. There they were, hand in hand, just like they used to be, only now they shared the same vision, the same purpose, the same path._

_At last, at last, at last…_

_“Do you feel it?” she asked. “That buzz in your hearts? Like we’re finally in the right place.” She squeezed his fingers. “Like we’re doing what we were made for.”_

_“Maximum carnage,” he murmured._

_“You’re the one who told me—who will tell me, I mean. Not everything, not the crucial part, but you started me on the path that led me here.” She raised one of her hands to rest on his cheek. “So you’ll need to get working on that. There’s a race of beings from another dimension: the Kasaavin. They’re the key to this. Find them and, well…” She grins. “…do what you usually do.”_

_“Succeed wildly until you foil my plans at the very last minute?” he asked, rolling his eyes a little._

_“Oh, of course. What did you think I meant?” She regarded him fondly, her expression still teasing. “I’ll need to erase myself from your memories of this. I know you can’t resist a good brag.”_

_He briefly wanted to protest, but grudgingly admitted to himself that she had a point. It was a fantastic secret, and it would be so difficult to not throw it in her past self’s face the next time she launched into a self-serving lecture about how naughty he was for killing her pets._

_“When it’s over,” she whispered, “wait for me. I’ll find my way back to you.”_

_“I’m going to be extremely angry at you, aren’t I?” he asked._

_She gave a snort of laughter. “Why would that ever change?”_

_“I’ll probably try to kill you. Repeatedly.”_

_“Obviously you won’t succeed. Besides,” she said with a smirk, “it’s our version of texting, isn’t it?”_

_He kissed her as they stood together in the ruins of Gallifrey._

Waiting will be torture, but he doesn’t have much choice in the matter. He sighs contentedly and leans back against one of the massive cables in this shadowy forest. The Valeyard will come for him eventually.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't until I was done writing this bit that I realized I had accidentally included a few lines that could be interpreted as a twist on the Hybrid prophecy from Series 9. So there's that too, I guess?


	4. What Comes Next...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really had planned to leave this story where it was... but then the alternate ending gave me ideas.
> 
> Here's a preview for a sequel to the Alternate Ending of this story: _Where We Belong._

It was all like some kind of dream. 

Ada’s mind went in so many different directions: into patterns, pictures, and places. The places most of all—times when her guardians would take her further inside her own mind than she would ever be able to travel on her own, leaving her body paralyzed until she returned, unharmed but tired. 

But now there was a gap in her mind, one full of more uncertainty than she had ever experienced before. It was like trying to remember the notes of a song heard only once from a distance, only with images: peculiar devices, a city of lights glowing with fire instead, taking someone’s hand and stepping across, lying not on the floor but under it—and, throughout it all, the blur of a woman’s voice, warm and coarse at the same time. 

Ada Gordon stared into the fireplace, journal in hand, and tried to remember the lost music.

She heard a sound in the other room, like one of the engines she saw at the Adelaide Gallery grinding metal on metal, or a train derailing, or the ripping of space like a tear through fabric. But before she could rise to her feet, the door opened and someone walked through it: a woman whose familiarity surrounded her like a cloud of smoke. 

“Ada!” the stranger said, her expression a mixture of concern and relief. “This’ll sound daft, I know, but bear with me for a moment: what year is it?”

She blinked in confusion for a moment. “The year is 1834,” she said, wondering if she was in danger from this person who had barged into her home in trousers and a long coat. She stood up and prepared to run if necessary.

“And the exhibition at the Adelaide Gallery… when was it?”

What an odd question. “It was a week ago. Who are you, and what has brought you to my home?”

The relief on the stranger’s face intensified. “Oh good. It’s in the past. You’ve already got the memories; plus, minimal risk of a paradox, won’t have to deal with my past self accidentally interfering.”

“Your… your what?”

“You’ll understand in a moment, I promise.” Before Ada could get out of range, the woman placed a hand on the side of her head.

It all came rushing back at once.

“Doctor,” Ada gasped, gripping the back of the armchair for support.

“Hello, Ada,” the Doctor said with a smile. “I’m back.”

The sensation of wonder gave way to a feeling of indignance. “You erased my memories… even when I begged you not to. How could you do such a thing?”

The Doctor was silent for a moment, almost as if she was frozen in place. Then she looked at the floor, her normally upbeat demeanor shifting into something that could almost be grief. “I’m sorry, Ada. I’m so sorry.” She appeared to force her eyes back to Ada’s face. “I was so sure that I knew better… that I knew best, but I didn’t. I didn’t know anything, not really, not back then… and now I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. I know what it feels like to have information hidden from you, to have someone else think that they’re doing it for your own good… but I’m done with that.” Something in her expression hardened. “No more secrets. No more lies.”

Ada sighed. “I am still wounded by your actions, Doctor, but… I do appreciate your apology.” A question occurred to her: “Is that the only reason why you have returned to my time?”

The Doctor shook her head sadly. “No, unfortunately. I know that I don’t deserve this, after what I’ve done to you, but… I need your help. There’s someone in trouble and you’re my only hope of reaching them.” 

Something in her eyes was urgent in a way that it had only been when that strange man had attacked the crowd in the Gallery. If she looked like this now, then the situation must be truly dire. “What help could I provide you?” Ada asked.

“I need you to call one of your guardians.”

Ada hesitated. “You told me that they were aliens who were trying to invade Earth. You told me that their intentions were not benign.”

The Doctor looked away and sighed sadly. “I know… and it’s still true. But someone’s trapped in their realm and I don’t have any other way of getting them out. I know it’s a risk—big risk—serious risk—big _serious_ risk—and I can’t force you to help me… but I really hope that you will.”

But Ada couldn’t help asking, nor could she keep the ice out of her voice when she did: “Do you plan to rob me of my memories of this time as well?”

“No!” the Doctor protested, grabbing her hands. “No, I promise: whether you agree to help or not, I won’t tamper with your mind again.” She stared at her pleadingly, and for a moment Ada could have sworn that she saw galaxies in the woman’s eyes.

Ada took a deep breath. “Very well. I will try to summon them, though we may need to call upon Mr. Babbage in order to do it properly.”

The Doctor’s face lit up with a smile. “Brilliant. Utterly brilliant, you. I can’t thank you enough, I’ll—” She froze again, the barest hint of a twitch in the corner of her eye. “I’ll make it up to you,” she said, her expression changing into something that was more teeth than smile. “And no need to trouble old Charles—well, trouble him any further than I already have—I made a quick stop on the way.” She ran back to the other room, where Ada could now see a blue box approximately the size of a wardrobe, and disappeared inside the door. She briefly wondered how the Doctor could do anything in such a small space, but she then recalled the odd cabin that they had travelled in back and forth through time. This must be another one of those contraptions, she reasoned.

“Here we are!” the Doctor said, pushing the case containing the Silver Lady into Ada’s sitting room. “And here we go!” She pointed that noisy device with the glowing yellow tip at the case and the room filled with radiance.

Seeing the Kasaavin again nearly rooted Ada to the ground in fear, but she steeled herself and stepped forward into the light, hoping that she was not about to walk into utter calamity.

But their destination was comforting in its familiarity: the strands of thought, the flickers of light, the feeling of being watched over—even though that last one was transforming into a feeling of being _watched,_ without the protective elements.

She was used to being alone in this realm, and it was still strange to see the Doctor there with her, but even more peculiar was the sight of a third individual: a man sitting with his back against the trunk of one of the large tree-like structures.

“You waited,” the Doctor called to him cheerfully.

The reply was tinged with sarcasm: “I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?” He stood and turned to face them; as he did, Ada couldn’t help emitting a tiny cry of terror.

It was the man from the Adelaide Gallery. The one that the Doctor called ‘The Master.’” The one who chased them through time. The one that she had tricked into incriminating himself with the Kasaavins in the future—they must have dragged him into this dimension, like they had taken the Doctor when Ada first met her.

Then why did he and the Doctor look so glad to see one another? Why had she gone to the trouble of finding him here? What was going on?

“How long was it?” the Doctor asked him, moving past Ada to meet him.

“I didn’t bother to keep track,” the Master said. “Too long.” Something in his eyes became darker, even possessive, as he gazed at the Doctor. “Far too long.”

Then, to Ada’s astonishment—and, if she was being honest, _horror—_ he took the Doctor in his arms and kissed her.

And the Doctor _didn’t pull away._ In fact, she returned the embrace, running her hands up his arms and shoulders until she had pushed her fingers into his hair, drawing him even closer.

_They tried to kill one another._

Ada knew that people could be made irrational by the turbulent waters of their hearts—she was the daughter of Lord Byron, after all—but even so, this was incomprehensible.

 _Lethal weapons from another time, bullets in the floorboards, soldiers and Kasaavin, betrayal after betrayal… how are they doing_ _this_ _?_

She very nearly left them there. Even absent the sudden change in their attitude toward one another, something about this felt off in a way that Ada couldn’t name but which shook her to the core.

It was as though the order of the universe was beginning to crumble.

She wasn’t the only one watching them: the Kasaavin, either a single one or a multitude in unison, spoke up: “Your arrival was foolish, Doctor.”

Her lips reluctantly leaving the Master’s, the Doctor turned to face them. “Was it?”

“You will not be permitted to leave. You will rot here with the other traitor.”

She gestured back to the Master. “The rot doesn’t seem to have set in yet. Just checked.”

“And you _would_ know what I’m like when that happens,” the Master added, his eyes still locked onto the Doctor as though he was starving.

One side of her mouth twitched in a smile. “True, you weren’t really at your best back then.” She addressed the Kasaavin again. “Sorry, got a bit distracted. Here’s what I meant to say: we’re leaving, all three of us together, and you won’t stop us—can’t, more accurately.”

“The subject only passes through when we allow it,” the Kasaavin stated. 

Ada bristled a little at the term _‘subject.’_ “If you keep me here, would that not mean that I will be prevented from accomplishing whatever task made me a topic of your study in the first place?”

“We can separate you from the renegades.”

“Ooo, I like that one,” the Doctor piped up. _“‘Renegades.’”_

The Master’s expression twisted in mild disgust. “A bit tame, if you ask me.”

Ada frowned at both of them uneasily. There was a plan coming together, one that she did not understand, but which filled the air with the stench of malice.

“You were a bit foolish yourselves, letting me in here,” the Doctor said, “especially without any kind of precautions. Tell me… do you feel tired yet?”

“Tired?” the Kasaavin echoed.

“Come on, it has to be setting in by now. You’re here at the epicenter of it. Not to worry,” she added, stepping towards the nearest of them, slowly, “it’s just a soporific—well, the equivalent for you lot. Passes along through communication… and you do so much communicating, don’t you? Constantly chatting. Swapping information back and forth. A virus could spread through your species so fast… and it is.”

Ada could see the flashes of light around them beginning to dim. Even the vaguely-human shapes of the Kasaavin were less bright than they were a moment ago.

“So enjoy your nap. You’ll probably wake up in… a billion years? A couple billion? You’ll be so well-rested by that point—a good long nap does wonders for one’s mood. I once spent a few decades on Ellyria just dozing. It was a cloud planet, very low gravity—”

The Master sighed impatiently. “Getting a bit off track, love.”

 _“Fine:_ by the time you wake up, it’ll be too late for you to interfere.” 

“You cannot…” the Kasaavin began to say, but trailed off. It was though they were having difficulty maintaining their concentration.

“Sorry,” the Doctor said cheerfully, “must dash.”

“Old-school again, I see,” the Master muttered.

“Oh, I’m bringing back all the classics. Ready, Ada?”

“I… yes.” Ada said, wondering why the Doctor had not utilized this strategy the previous time. She held out her hand, which the Doctor took in her own while taking the Master's hand in the other.

“Sweet dreams,” the Doctor called, as Ada stepped forward into the diminishing light she knew she was seeing for the final time.

Reappearing in Ada’s sitting room, the Master took a deep breath, as though he was inhaling a lungful of fresh air after days of being cooped up indoors. “At last.”

Would he resume his violent acts now that he was free? Ada braced herself for another outburst.

However, the Doctor, who was still holding his hand, pulled him in the direction of the blue box in the other room. “I’ll just be a moment, Ada,” she said.

The Master followed her, almost meekly, staring down at their joined hands with the same hungry expression he had displayed before.

As Ada waited, she remembered Noor’s question about the Doctor when they met in Paris: _“Why are we trusting her?”_

At the time, Ada replied, _“I have seen extraordinary things with her. She’s wise and unafraid, and I believe in her.”_

She was no longer certain that those things were true.

The Doctor exited the box with an armful of books and equipment, which she placed on the table in a heap. “Here you go! Books on circuitry, programming languages, mathematical proofs, electrical engineering, _plus_ a few early examples of computers—don’t worry, I’ve included solar batteries: all you have to do is stick them out in the sun and they’ll keep a charge. Same for the mobile phones—your data plan’s _fantastic,_ by the way, unlimited in time and space, no monthly fees.”

Ada stared down at the pile in astonishment. “Doctor, what is all of this?”

“It’s all _yours,_ Ada: everything I wasn’t able to show you and more. You can learn it all, kick off the digital age, go full steampunk if you like—”

“You told me that I was not meant to have this knowledge, that history was—”

“Forget history!” the Doctor snapped. “I was wrong, and now I’m trying to make things right. You deserve this knowledge, you deserve to see more than the nineteenth century would have given you, you—” She pulled a device out of her coat and pushed it into the side of Ada’s neck; Ada heard a faint hiss and felt a sudden pinch. “—you deserve more time!”

“What have you done?”

“Making sure you don’t die of uterine cancer at age 36.” The Doctor returned the device to her pocket. “Not sure how effective it’ll be long-term, biotech’s tricky like that, but it’ll give you a few more years, maybe even decades.”

 _Thirty-six?_ The same age that her father died. “You’re changing history.”

“I’m _fixing_ it. I can _do_ that.” She placed her hands on Ada’s upper arms. “Do you know what one of the worst sentences in the universe is? _’Oh, if only she’d lived.’_ I hate that sentence. I _hate_ things being snatched away and I _hate_ being told that it’s _supposed_ to happen. Nothing is _supposed_ to happen: things just _happen._ History isn’t sacred. Nothing is written in stone. Your history isn’t written in stone either. The same is true for Noor—she didn’t _have_ to be captured and killed by the Nazis, so I went and rescued her! Things _can_ be changed! Things _can_ be made better!”

Her fingers were gripping just a little too tight. “Are you quite well, Doctor?”

“I’m n—” The Doctor cut herself off mid-sentence with a look of brief alarm. She took a deep breath and released her hold on Ada. “You’re going to do great things, Ada—not because history says so, but because of who you are: someone brilliant, someone who can see the potential in things and work out what _could_ be.” She grinned wildly. “I can’t wait to see how it goes.”

She was saying goodbye, which meant that Ada was running out of time to ask the question that had been haunting her all this time: “Why did you rescue him?”

The Doctor froze again, her earlier mirth vanishing. “That doesn’t matter. He won’t harm you or this time period again.”

“But what about you? He came here to harm _you!”_

“That’s between us—”

“Is it?” Ada interrupted. “I saw what happened in the Gallery, Doctor: he murdered people—some of them my acquaintances—and when I fired the steam gun at him, do you know what you did?” The Doctor looked at her uneasily… almost guiltily. “You stepped in the way. I was able to deliver a wound to his shoulder, but you stepped in the way.”

“You threw a grenade at him,” the Doctor said quietly. “I didn’t stop you from doing that.”

“Which was little more than a distraction. It did nothing more… and he was free afterwards to kill again. Now that I may review that incident with fresh eyes, I realise something that I had not before: whatever your history is with this man, it has tipped the scales in your soul so far that you were willing to trade innocent lives for his. You demonstrated that, through inaction rather than action, you would kill for him.”

A thousand stars seemed to burn in the Doctor’s eyes for one terrible moment… and then she smiled ruefully. “You’re so very clever, Ada.” Something in that smile hardened. “But save it for your studies, not for me.”

She turned and headed to the open door of that box where, Ada now saw, the Master was casually leaning against the doorframe, his expression triumphant.

“Goodbye, Ada,” the Doctor said without looking at her.

“Goodbye, Doctor,” Ada said flatly.

As the door closed, Ada heard the Master say to the Doctor: “I noticed that you didn’t correct her about your name.”

But the Doctor’s—if it was in fact the Doctor—reply was inaudible from where Ada stood, and any other noise was soon drowned out by the metallic sound of the blue box’s departure.

As Ada returned to her chair in front of the fire, she noticed that her hands were shaking.

She had witnessed extraordinary things in her life, many of which were at the Doctor’s side, but it had not occurred to her that it was possible for someone to be impersonated that precisely. In fact, had they not encountered the Master again, Ada might never have noticed a difference.

Because there _was_ a difference: something harsher, an anger hidden just below the surface, a wound that would never close.

Some mysterious ally of the Master, perhaps?

Except… the way that he looked at this impersonator, with that desperate intensity, as though he couldn’t decide whether to wrap his arms around her waist or wrap his hands around her throat… it was the same way he looked at the Doctor during their confrontation in the Adelaide Gallery.

Combined with the real Doctor’s actions in the Gallery… Ada had hoped for her accusations to be met with a protest that no one, not even the most wicked of men, deserved to die… but the person she had just spoken to did not offer one.

Which presented Ada with a new hypothesis: that this dangerous creature _was_ the Doctor… but not anymore.

Ada turned to look at the pile of books and devices that had been bestowed upon her—all of the information that she desired—and recognized it for what it was: temptation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to read more? Click "Next Work" to continue to the full story: in which the Master and the Valeyard/Thirteen rampage through the Doctor's previous lives on a desperate mission to get rid of the Time Lords once and for all. Also, there's kissing.


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